Single source of truth (SSOT)
The principle of maintaining one authoritative, definitive place for each piece of data, so all systems and people reference the same value rather than conflicting copies.
In more detail
A single source of truth means that for any given piece of data there is one authoritative place it lives, and everything else references that rather than keeping its own copy. When the same fact is stored independently in several systems, the copies inevitably drift, and people end up arguing over which number is right instead of trusting any of them.
Achieving it is more organizational than technical. It requires agreeing which system owns which data and disciplining the others to defer to it, rather than each team maintaining its own version. The payoff is that decisions rest on consistent data and reconciliation stops being a constant tax.
Where this shows up at Ceven
Ceven reinforces a single source of truth rather than undermining it: because it is not a system of record, it reads from and writes to the customer's authoritative systems instead of creating a competing copy. Workflows keep the designated source of truth current and propagate from it, with each write recorded in the audit trail.